Sunday, December 5, 2010

It's Sunday again, and you know what that means—time for me to rip off the puzzle segment from NPR's Weekend Edition Sunday!

Mustachioed enigmatologist

extraordinaire, Will Shortz

If you're a newcomer, each week on Weekend Edition Sunday, Will Shortz (the hardcore crossword puzzlers' almighty God) comes on the radio to do three things: share the solution to the previous week's puzzle, invite a winner who entered the correct answer to play another puzzle (usually word-related) on the air for word-nerdy prizes, and present everyone with the next week's puzzle (answers due in by Thursday afternoon via the WES website if you want a chance to play on the air).

Note: I never post the solutions on this blog. I see lots of keyword traffic coming from people looking for the answers, which is at best impatient, and at worst, cheating. For shame.

Now without further ado, here's this week's new puzzle:

From Sam Lloyd, a puzzle-maker from a century ago: Draw a 4x4 square. Divide it into 16individual boxes. Next, draw a diagonal line from the middle of each side of the square to the middle of the adjoining side, forming a diamond. And, finally draw a long diagonal line from each corner of the square to the opposite corner, forming an X.

Like so, I believe:

How many triangles can you find in this figure?

Click here to see the original puzzle posting, check the answer to last week's challenge, listen to the segment, or find the link to enter your answer.

2 comments:

Deadline's past so it's safe to speak, now—dag, I think I got this puzzle wrong with my best guess of 84! But check out this most excellent post I was told about via Twitter, wherein the puzzle is solved using quilt blocks! Love it.